


Follow Your Feet

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: first fic, still getting the hang of this, what fun though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John faces a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow Your Feet

_heat, fiery, bright, loud, how could heat be loud, his mind and body were full of sensation and pain and_

Sunlight on his face.

What?

John opened his eyes. The light was bright, but not unbearably so. Peaceful. He shielded his eyes with one hand anyway, out of reflex, then stood, slightly unsteadily, dimly surprised to find grass under his feet. What had he been expecting, though? Concrete? No, not exactly…tile?

His mind caught at the word, his mouth pulling down into a half-frown, but before he could so much as consider it the idea fled. No…no, grass was right. He smiled slightly.

Before him stretched a bit of meadow, green and softly lit, a warm-looking brown rock bordering the last few feet of green before the ground was lost in a thick white mist. That way, he knew, was back. Back…where?

_(Tile –)_

He took a slow step forward.

“Not that way, John.”

He turned – and there was Sherlock.

Sherlock.

The strange sense of peace he’d felt upon waking up here was instantly gone. He was awake again, alive again, in a way he hadn’t been only a minute ago. He strode quickly to Sherlock’s side, stopping just before the edge of the small rise they stood on.

“What is this place, do you know?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock’s answer was immediate, unthinking, certain. John waited, but no more information was forthcoming.

“Well, are you going to –”

“Explore?” Sherlock asked, gesturing out at the broad meadow and forest before and slightly below them. Mid-gesture, he froze. One hand flew up to his heart and the other to his head, his knees buckling slightly as he hunched in on himself, and for a split second he looked close to collapse. In the next instant he looked fine again, but John reached tentatively upward and briefly rested his hand on the taller man’s shoulder. 

“Sherlock? Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

The single syllable was soft, quiet, but Sherlock’s face was intent as he straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and started down the slight rise with unusually careful steps. 

And for a second, John hesitated.

He turned a little and looked back toward the mist behind him, looked _hard_ , and for a second he could hear a dim, flickering roar, the sound of destruction. There was something warm and wet on his hands, his legs, his face; something important in his arms, a phantom weight. For a second darkness and flickering red light overwhelmed the natural glow of the veiled sun.

_I could go back._

The thought came from nowhere.

 _“JO –_ ”

“ – hn?”

Sherlock’s eyes, when John met them, were blank in a way that John now knew very well how to read. And so, without a word, he turned and followed, just as he had from the very first day.

Behind them, the mist swirled upward, then disappeared, leaving more meadow and distant mountains in its wake.


End file.
